Recognizing people

Some people are better at it than others.
I had to get rather proficent at it.

People would come and I'd ask to see their picture ID.
"Why," they would ask?

"Because it is the law and for your own protection " I would answer.

They would then show it to me.

One day a lady came in to pick up a piece of jewelry. I had not seen her previously .

"She produced pcture ID which looked nothing like her.
I said, " sign here"--would't ya know her signature was a perfect match.

I said "Just one problem, this is not you. "

"Yes it is I lost a lot of weight."

"I don't care how much weght you have lost these are not your eyes."
It turned out she was trying to reclaim her sisters jewelry.

How do you recognize folks?

Scent Alice...I get their scent. One whiff, and I can track em in the dark with my eyes closed.

Funny

Some years ago I stopped at a convenience store to pick up beer for my husband. The lovely man asked for my ID.

Trouble was, in my driver's license photo I had make up on and my hair was short. (It was actually a GOOD photo of me.) My hair grows pretty quickly.

Now two years since the photo, I as wearing a pony tail ... and no make up.

The man looked at my ID and then me and said 'this doesn't look like you'. I told him 'I know. But it is.' I smiled.

He looked at it again and sold me the beer.

I was smiling in my ID photo.

(BTW - some states are not going to allow smiling anymore)

I usually recognize people by their voice. I may not recognize an acquaintance if I haven't seen them in quite some time by their physical features, but the minute they speak, my memory kicks in full force.

Dave and I were coming home from Chicago, Midwest
ariport.

The ID man took a a quick look at my pasport then tossed it back at me with a, curt, "This is not you, Mam."

I looked at it and burst out laughing Dave had gven me his passport instead of mine.

A retired priest (Episcopal, not Catholic) stopped by our local church office while I was volunteering at the reception desk. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt. He said he wanted to see our rector, so I asked for his name. He immediately grew three inches taller, mostly because of his nose sticking itself in the air. That's when I recognized him. I told him I would have known him immediately had he been wearing his collar. That did nothing to lower the position of his nose. I decided it was he who had a problem, not me.



Ann

Ann,

You, as usual, got that right.

I've told this before but I'll repeat it so you'll know how to recognize people:
At a memory class a man was taught to remember people by a physical characteristic and making a rhyme of it. He later did so by thinking "Mrs. Lummick with the big stomach."
The next time he saw her he said, "Hello, Mrs. Kelly."

Like Don, I recall faces but not names. Over the years I've had a couple of thousand people work for me in one or another of the manager's jobs I've held, and they will just about always remember me, even though I sometimes don't them. When I stopped to think about it, I understood why.

While I'd had a great lot of people working for me, many of them had only had a handful of supervisors over the years. They could pretty remember them all, but there was no way I could put names with all of the faces.

I learned a nice little trick a few years ago that has helped me out. When I see someone whose name I don't remember, I always say:

"You're uh, you're ..."

And they will reply with

"I'm Jack..."

And I say,

"Yeah, I remember your first name Jack, it's the last name I can't think of."

To which they will say,

"It's Jones."

And I'll say,

"Oh, how could I forget that."

If they give me their last name first, then I just reverse the process.

It works, but you have to be thinking on your feet.

I always forget a name, but I never remember a face...

The thing that gets me the worst is seeing people I worked with for
years in their hospital uniforms, then run into them outside of work
and in their leisure clothes. I recogmize them well enough to KNOW that
I know them, but can't decide where from!

domenic Pappalardo wrote:

Scent Alice...I get their scent. One whiff, and I can track em in the dark with my eyes closed.

Women Can Smell a Man's Sexual Intentions

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 | Women Can Smell a Man's Sexual Intentions

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 | FoxNews.com
By Melinda Wenner



We Italians have always known this...guys, don't shower before you date, it will twist their heads 360 degrees.

I seldom recognize anyone, especially women who have a half a dozen hair styles and colors.

Quite often, the police will send photographs of suspects to TV stations. Ultimately, when the people are caught and I see them in video footage, they never look anything like the photographs. I wonder how anybody makes the connection.

Malcolm

Dick, you crack me up!

We can all recognize Dick --he's the funny guy.

As expressed by the two Dons - the jumper and the singer, both great authors and gentlemen, my problem is similar. I rarely forget a face and rarely remember a name.

I try to improvise. I may say, "Before I mispronounce your name, could you please give me the proper pronunciation?"
There are other things I use depending on the situation, but I can't seem to remember them just now. I'm having a senior moment.

Dick Stodghill wrote:

I've told this before but I'll repeat it so you'll know how to recognize people:
At a memory class a man was taught to remember people by a physical characteristic and making a rhyme of it. He later did so by thinking "Mrs. Lummick with the big stomach."
The next time he saw her he said, "Hello, Mrs. Kelly."

When Dick was on the history channel, I heard his voice before I saw him. I said to my husband, "that's Dick." It was. I had never heard his voice, but somehow it seemed to be the voice that went with the picture and with his words, if that makes sense.

Carol

I am like Don and DJ. I can remember faces from long ago but seldom can put a name to the face. I have been known to try to introduce Al to people, only to lose his name!!

When I tended bar, I could not remember the names of regular customers, but could have their drink ready before they ordered.

Faces seem to be much more memorable.